HP Leaks Plans For Its First Google-Powered Chromebook

HP will be launching its first Chromebook in February, according to a leaked document found on the HP website.

Chromebooks are Google's name for laptops that run its stripped-down, Web-friendly Chrome operating system.

The document is no longer on the site but it revealed pretty detailed plans and specs for a device called the HP Pavilion Chromebook.

It will have a 1.1GHz Celeron processor, 2GB of RAM, a 16GB solid-state drive, and a 14-inch, 1366x768 display, reports Nathan Ingraham on The Verge.

That means the Chromebook will have a bigger display than the ones available from Lenovo, Samsung, and Acer, Ingraham says. The others have 11.6-inch displays. Other than that, specs seem pretty similar.

HP is officially offering no comment on the device yet but the document also noted an "ad embargo date" of February 17. So looks like we can expect to hear more about the device then.

Chromebooks are built around Google's free operating system, Chrome OS, which is based on Linux and competes with Microsoft Windows.

HP's apparent tie-up with Google is a blow to Microsoft. It's been a particularly hard time for the software giant in its relationships with PC makers. For instance, on Sunday, Acer president Jim Wong said that Chromebooks were selling better than Windows 8 PCs, Bloomberg reported.

A big factor with partners' discontent is Microsoft's move to offer its own Surface Windows 8 tablet and PCs, in direct competition with HP and other PC makers.

In November, Hewlett-Packard ponied up $500,000 to became a Platinum member of the Linux Foundation, the organization responsible for Linux and other open-source software projects. As we reported at the time, this gave HP a big voice with one of Microsoft's biggest competitors. The foundation has operating system projects for servers, PCs, and smartphones.